I swapped Britain for safe, clean, low-tax Singapore – and my happiness has soared
I moved to Singapore in 2021, during the pandemic, because I wanted a change. I am from Harrogate in Yorkshire originally but went to Southampton for university in 2014 and then on to Bath to work because my younger brother was studying there. I landed a good job as a podiatrist working in Wiltshire, played golf, tennis and cricket regularly and bought a house outside Bath.
After a while, I began considering opening my own practice, maybe in Bristol, but on a bit of a whim one night I applied for a job in Singapore. I was interviewed two weeks later, and two more weeks after that offered a position at a Singaporean company, by a chap from Yorkshire – which I took to be a good sign.
My dad surprised me and said: 'Go, you have nothing to lose'. So, without ever having visited Singapore, I went. I'd spent a year in Australia aged 19 and did Camp America, so I'm quite adventurous, and my new company organised my visa and said they'd pay back my £600 flight cost if I passed a three-month probation.
I rented out my house near Bath, found a three-month flat share, got on a plane and have never looked back: my career, personal life and happiness have soared since I arrived.
I found the flat share quite hard as I was sharing with Malaysians who never came out of their rooms to socialise, so after three months I moved in with a colleague – also from Yorkshire – and another girl from Cumbria. My job was interesting, but not perfect – in the NHS I'd been trained in ethics but the company was taking poor decisions focused entirely on money. It took a while to work out whether it was normal for Singapore but it turned out to be just that business, so I moved to another owned by an Australian healthcare firm and things improved drastically.
The average podiatrist salary is around £39,000 in the UK but between £42,000 and £52,000 in Singapore, so I'm earning more, but the big difference is the progressive tax system leaving me with a much higher take home than I'd ever achieve in Britain – the very top rate of tax in Singapore is 24 per cent. There's no council tax and electricity is really cheap so I can save and invest a lot more now, and we charge a lot more for consultations than in London so my earning potential is much bigger.
Here my clientele are people pushing boundaries and doing big things, so I'm becoming far more ambitious. In the small town where I worked in Wiltshire, I saw mainly older ladies and was preparing to settle down. I do a lot of social media now and I think the Singapore hustle and drive has really rubbed off on me to push me onto bigger things. I could also start my own business more easily. Rather than burdening small businesses with crippling taxes like the UK, Singapore supports start-ups.
I also love that Singapore is so safe. When you first arrive here, you're scared to break any rules – inadvertently littering, for example – and risk deportation, but you soon get used to it. There are cameras everywhere in the city, so nothing gets missed, and the government probably has a full profile of me. The upside is you can leave your phone on the table in a busy mall, go back 10 minutes later and it's still there. I've never seen a fight or drunk and disorderly behaviour, and you would never think to do drugs. People might think it's a weird world but I prefer this to living a life of vigilance in the UK.
I do miss the British countryside, and having a pint in the pub after cricket. I miss the fresh air and British summers, when it stays light until 10pm, and I can't play golf as joining a club here would cost SGD300,000 (£173,288)! Buying a car is equally tough, you need a special CEO certificate, and they are so heavily taxed that the cheapest is around SGD100,000 (£57,762), but the transport system is fantastic so you never really need one.
I've recently got engaged to Kat, who is a performer at Universal Studios, so we now live together, and my social life has improved massively since I joined Singapore Cricket Club three years ago. It costs SGD3,000 (£1,732) a year membership which is significantly more than the £20 season fee in Bath, but I've made a real network and play tennis, cricket and other sports there, too.
Right now, my friends are all busy with work, getting married and having children at home, so I don't think I'd see much more of them anyway. My family and friends visit regularly and I go home once a year.
Kat and I get married in 2027 and will probably stay here until our children are four, but then school fees will kick in and I suspect we will return to the UK. In the meantime, we plan to maximise our travel and earning opportunities – Kat is from the Philippines, so we go there, too – and enjoy the quality of life we have.
It is very humid, with thunder showers between 2pm and 4pm every day, but I enjoy that you can always wear shorts and a T-shirt after work. If we had perfect weather, everyone would stay – people leave because there are no seasons. Initially when you move, you think you're missing out on things at home but Singapore feels like a futuristic state and for now, every sunny day is a pinch-me moment.
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